11 Reasons Why It's More Fun To Be a Mets Fan Than a Yankees Fan

Image via Complex Original

We’ll start with technically the biggest reason.

Mets fans were gifted a glorious stadium for watching baseball 81 times a season. New York knocked down a dump (Shea Stadium) to build a gem.

Yankees fans got a soulless coliseum that has all the intimacy of Times Square. New York knocked down a monument (the old Yankee Stadium) to build a brick.  

Citi Field looks like an old-school ballpark. It’s got charm. It’s got character. Tickets are reasonable.

Yankee Stadium looks like a shiny knockoff. It’s sterile. It’s about as charming as your favorite Chipotle. Tickets are outrageous.

Citi Field was designed for baseball. It has all these wonderful quirks, like the Home Run Apple and the Jackie Robinson rotunda.

Yankee Stadium was designed for baseball, too, but the organization knew they’d be hosting soccer and football. It features the exact same outfield dimensions as the old stadium while Monument Park is buried behind the centerfield wall.

But, perhaps most importantly, Citi Field runs laps around Yankee Stadium when it comes to food. Citi has Shake Shack and Blue Smoke. Enough said.

Let’s put it this way. During the Subway Series, this Yankees fan didn’t watch the YES broadcast. He tuned in to SNY.

That’s because the three-man booth of Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez wipes the floor with whatever crew YES throws out there.

Darling and Hernandez have an uncanny ability to break down aspects of the game succinctly and in terms even a little leaguer can understand. You will literally learn something new from those guys every night they’re on. They praise, they criticize. They call it like it is. And Cohen is a no-nonsense play-by-play man who expertly sets up his analysts.

Good luck getting that on YES.

Want to hear about Paul O’Neill’s workout regimen and golf game? Tune into YES. Want to find out what crap Michael Kay had for lunch that day? Tune into YES. Want to hear two analysts, Ken Singleton and John Flaherty, broadcast a three-game series together? Tune into YES.

Unless Al Leiter’s doing the game, it’s just background noise.

Simply put, Matt Harvey is a G.

Only 26 years old, Harvey has taken over the mantle as New York’s most glamorous athlete from Derek Jeter and given Mets fans the hero they deserve.  

He’s a rock star in a sport devoid of them. He dates models and doesn’t apologize for having fun in the city, like having dinner downtown or rooting on the Rangers at Madison Square Garden. He loves hip-hop, lives in the East Village, and has one of the coolest nicknames, The Dark Knight, of any New York athlete ever. What’s not to love?

On the field, it’s the attitude Harvey brings that makes him so special. He has this fire burning inside him that he can’t hide. He’s ultra competitive and when it’s his turn to take the mound, Harvey expects to win. So do his teammates. So do Mets fans. #HarveyDay is every Mets fans’ favorite day of the week.

He snarls at hitters, throws inside, sticks up for his teammates and overpowers the game’s best—just ask Bryce Harper. He makes a Tuesday night at Citi Field the hottest ticket in town and might be the most electric athlete in the Big Apple not named Odell Beckham Jr.

A national treasure, Mr. Met belongs on the mascot Mount Rushmore.

With a head the size of Barry Bonds’ bicep, Mr. Met has served as the Amazins’ ambassador since 1964, when he became the first live-action mascot in baseball history.  

He’s jovial, available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and corporate outings and deserves everyone’s props for locking down that stealth hottie, Mrs. Met.

The Yankees, once upon a time, tried to capitalize on the mascot craze of the '70s. Dandy, a mustachioed monstrosity that looked like the illegitimate child of Oscar the Grouch and Miss Piggy, debuted in 1979 and should go down as one of George Steinbrenner’s worst decisions.

Winning isn’t a birthright in Queens the way it is in the Bronx. And that’s why the good times are so special for the Mets.

The Mets have won 90 games or more 10 times in their existence. The Yankees have won 90 games or more 11 times since 2000.

The Metropolitans live under the Yankees' shadow. So when the tide turns for the Metsies—give or take every decade—it’s fresh, it’s new, it’s exciting. It’s kind of a big deal.

Let’s face it, the absurd expectation that the Yankees should win the World Series every year got stale a long time ago. Like, right after the dynasty ended in 2001.

And rooting for the favorite every single season is exhausting. Who wants to deal with the agita of intense postseason baseball when your shit-talking contemporaries are chomping at the bit to bust your balls over the Yankees early exit?

Getting behind the underdog, the also-ran, is exponentially more fun.

In last Friday’s opening game of the Subway Series, 8 of the 10 Mets in the starting lineup were homegrown players.

The Yankees had one.

Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Lucas Duda, Juan Lagares and Kevin Plawecki are the future of the Mets. They’re young, they’re talented and they’re cheap—the holy trinity of professional sports.

The Mets' payroll for 2015 is approximately $101 million, according to the AP. The Yankees own a $219 million payroll. It’s a lot more fun rooting for the kids who have worked their way up from rookie ball than getting behind another nine-figure mercenary signed away from your archrival.

The Yankees are the complete opposite of the Mets: hired hands that are mind-numbingly old and laughably expensive. Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, Jacoby Ellsbury and Brian McCann are all over 30, making a combined $107 million this season. Oh, and they’re all signed until they’re eligible for Social Security.

The Core Four, Yankees fans, is not walking through that door.

We already mentioned Harvey, Colon and deGrom. We did not discuss Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz, the Mets other young studs.

The five of them make up arguably the best rotation in baseball and is the reason they are such a scary team in October. Mets fans should be embarrassed by how much high-end pitching they have. There are more studs in the Mets rotation than Magic Mike.

It’s a different story in the Bronx where their best pitcher is one overthrow away from shredding his elbow. And after Masahiro Tanaka, things are pretty bleak. Do Yankees fans trust CC Sabathia? Luis Severino? Ivan Nova has already been banished to the bullpen and the Yanks are hoping their most consistent starter in the second half, Nathan Eovaldi, can make it back in time for October.

The last time Queens was guaranteed to see more postseason games than the Bronx? You have to go all the way back to 1988.

That should change.

The Mets, barring an epic collapse that—let's be honest—we’ve seen from them before, will be NL East champs for the first time since 2006 and could potentially have home-field advantage in the NLDS if they can overtake the Dodgers for the second-best record in the National League.

On the other hand, the Yankees squandered a big lead in the AL East to the Blue Jays weeks ago and have wasted plenty of opportunities to retake the top spot. It looks like the Bombers will have to settle for one of the Wild Card slots.

If you’re into that kind of thing, the Mets odds to win the World Series are 5-1. They opened at 30-1. The Yankees are currently 15-1 to win the World Series. They opened at 12-1.

It's good to be a Mets fan.